2022 | Vieux Château Certan | Pomerol

Jaw-droppingly good in every sense, its deep purple hue is followed by a massive array of black cherries, violets, red plums, chocolate, and violets. This carries to a full-bodied Pomerol with a voluptuously layered mouthfeel, perfect tannins, and a great, great finish.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: A blend of 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon (very similar to the 2019), the 2022 Vieux Château Certan is a magical wine of exemplary harmony and balance. Offering up complex aromas of dark berries and cherries mingled with notions of exotic spices, licorice, iris, violets and loamy soil, it's full-bodied, supple and seamless, its sweet structuring tannins entirely concealed by a multidimensional core of pure, vibrant fruit. This sensual, perfumed Pomerol is likely to rank alongside the 2019 and 2016 in the pantheon of recent Vieux Château Certan vintages.

• James Suckling: The freshness and dynamic sense to the wine is so surprising. Minerally and salty. It's full yet racy. Black ink and oyster shell. Excellent length. 25% cabernet franc, 5% cabernet sauvignon and the rest, merlot.

Producer Information

Vieux Château Certan is a wine estate in the Pomerol appellation on Bordeaux's Right Bank, known for its rich, deeply colored red wine (usually) based on Merlot. It is consistently rated by judges and the press as one of the very best wines in the world, and achieves correspondingly high prices at auction. The vineyard covers 14 hectares (35 acres) and is one of the largest single block sites in the Right Bank. Many of the vines are 50 years old, with one parcel dating back to 1932. Vieux Château Certan neighbors Pétrus at the top and center of the Pomerol plateau. Most of the vines sit on the famed Gunz gravel terrace, which is made up of large pebbles and clay over an iron-rich subsoil. This is quite fertile, so care must be taken to limit vine vigor in favor of ripening grapes. Around 30 percent of the property lies on deeper clay soils. Merlot makes up 65 percent of plantings, split between the clay and clay-gravel soils. 30 percent is Cabernet Franc, which is judged to perform particularly well in the clay-gravel. The remaining 5 percent – the most gravelly areas – is planted to Cabernet Sauvignon. The proportions in the finished grand vin can vary widely from these numbers. For example the 2016 was 85 percent Merlot, while the 2011 included 29 percent Cabernet Franc. Fortunately the château has the reputation of producing great wines in those vintages where both Merlot and Cabernet Franc did well, and in Merlot-dominant years. That said, the hot-weather 2003 is a special case, with 80 percent Cabernet Franc. The 1993 (a moderate year across much of Bordeaux), contains 50 percent of that variety. Fermentation takes place in temperature controlled oak vats, set at 28C (82.4F). Lots selected for the grand vin are aged for up to 22 months in new French oak. A second wine, La Gravette de Certan, is also produced from young vines. Total annual production for the estate averages around 5000 cases.

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